JOIN Staff

Karla Van Praag is the founding Executive Director of JOIN for Justice: the Jewish Organizing Institute and Network, a national institution dedicated to training, supporting, and connecting Jewish organizers and their communities. Before launching JOIN in 2012, Karla directed its predecessor organization, the Jewish Organizing Initiative, a community organizing apprenticeship program for young Jewish adults based in Boston. She led its transformation from a local grassroots organization to a successful national nonprofit that trains thousands of leaders across the country, more than tripling its budget and helping it become the go-to organization for Jewish organizations to receive mentoring and training on what it takes to build powerful and effective communities and social justice efforts. Karla has a rich background in leadership development, youth programs, nonprofit management, service learning, and organizing, including serving as the Director of Planning and Leadership Development at Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council and as Deputy Director of the Somerville Community Corporation. Karla holds a graduate degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was a Public Service Fellow, and is a graduate of Wesleyan University. She currently serves as an Advisory Board Member at Real Food Challenge, and is on the leadership team of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, a network of 57 American Jewish social justice organizations that organize collective action in the Jewish social justice field. She lives in Revere, MA with her husband Rafael and their three children.

Jeannie Appleman co-founded the Seminary Leadership Project in 2005. Through the SLP, she has trained more than 300 seminary students in organizing, congregational development, and leadership. In the last few years, she has worked closely with Conservative movement alumni from the SLP, and through JOIN’s partnership, has trained Conservative Rabbis from the Rabbinical Association. She has also trained faculty, administrators and students at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and has trained and developed hundreds of synagogue leaders from all four movements. Recently, Jeannie served as the lead organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation‘s affiliate broad-based organizations in Long Island and Queens, as well as training synagogue leaders in their Westchester affiliate. Jeannie has organized for the last 25 years in New York, Chicago and Louisiana, doing broad-based, tenant, electoral, anti-intervention, and issue-based organizing. Jeannie has worked with scores of synagogue leaders to develop congregational development strategies to grow and strengthen their communities. Jeannie is coaching 29 Rabbis in our Chut Fellowship in D.C., Los Angeles and Philadelphia, and training and mentoring leaders and Rabbis from 6 Synagogues in conducting listening campaigns in Baltimore, in partnership with the Associated and the Darrell Friedman Institute for Professional Development, through its Engagement Partnership.

Bess is JOIN’s Operations and Grants Officer, responsible for managing JOIN’s finances and HR, working with the Director of Special Projects on fundraising, as well as supporting the Executive Director and the Board. Originally from Maine, she moved to Boston in 2012 to participate in JOIN’s Jewish Organizing Fellowship. She was placed with Toxics Action Center, where she worked training and supporting grassroots leaders around New England to keep their communities safe from pollution. She is a graduate of Smith College with a degree in Sociology, and an alum of the Adamah farming fellowship. Outside of her work at JOIN, Bess volunteers with Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters and co-leads Netivot, an LGBT Jewish community.

Bridgit Brown has more than 15 years of experience in the nonprofit and communications
sectors. Before coming to JOIN, she was appointed the Director of Administration and Finance
for the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture, where she managed a budget of $3.6 million,
administered the Boston Cultural Council’s grant-making program and oversaw the operations
for the historic Strand Theatre, among other things.
Prior to joining the City of Boston, Bridgit was a communications officer for the Nellie Mae
Education Foundation where she distributed thousands of dollars in communications grants and
helped to pilot an online hub for student-centered learning. Preceding that, she raised
thousands of dollars as a development professional for several Boston-based nonprofits.
Bridgit has always freelanced as a contributing writer and communications specialist. Her writing
has appeared in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Color Magazine, Bay State Banner, and
WGBH. She also contributed to Giving Black Boston: An Intimate Portrait of Black Stewardship.
She is a recipient of the John W. Fulbright Lecturing and Research Award from the US
Department of State, which allowed her to perform cultural studies research in Freetown, Sierra
Leone and lecture at the Ecole Normale Superior in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire.
In addition to her experience, Bridgit is a graduate of Emerson College (MFA ‘98).

As JOIN’s Fellowship Director and Trainer, Allegra is responsible for guiding the development of young Jewish organizers through the Jewish Organizing Fellowship and providing organizing training to other Jewish institutions. She started in this role in June 2016, but she has been part of the JOIN community since she was a fellow in 2012-2013. Allegra worked at her JOIN fellowship placement, the Boston Center for Independent Living, for four years, organizing people with disabilities to fight for access and civil rights. Through this work, Allegra discovered her love of leadership development, training, and social justice education. She is thrilled to apply these skills to directing the Fellowship at JOIN. Originally from New Jersey, Allegra has a B.A. in Psychology and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Wesleyan University.

Elana Kogan is the Director of Special Projects at JOIN, and Acting Executive Director through October 2018. Previously, she served as the Senior Director of Organizing and then National Field Director of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, where she led the organization’s base-building efforts including the creation of a new chapter-building model. Elana has also worked at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston as Director of Planning and Leadership Development and Director of Synagogue Organizing, where she organized synagogues, developed leaders, and ran campaigns in partnership with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and other coalitions. During that time, she also served as the loaned executive to the Jewish Organizing Initiative for several months. Elana has a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a Master of Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Elana is also a Certified Consulting Hypnotist and founder of Wellness Through Hypnosis.

Meir has worked as a professional community organizer for over 25 years, helping develop the model for engaging Jewish communities in broad based organizing, and serving as the mentor of a generation of young organizers and rabbis. Among Meir’s work at JOIN, he has consulted to dozens of synagogues and Jewish organizations, designed JOIN’s clergy fellowship, and served as a lead trainer for JOIN’s highly acclaimed online course. Prior to coming to JOIN, Meir served as the Lead Organizer of the Greater Boston Synagogue Organizing Project of the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council. Through GBSOP, 14 synagogues, hundreds of leaders, both adults and teens, and thousands of Jewish community members organized to identify their common values and interests, develop a common story and mission, and take action to live their values and defend their interests, both in the community around public issues and within their own institutions. Meir has also taught community organizing to hundreds of rabbinical students through classes and workshops with various seminaries. Previously, Meir built powerful organizations of homeless people in Connecticut and of Sepharadi, Russian, and Arab public housing tenants in Israel, and worked as the lead organizer of the Brockton Interfaith Community, a coalition of 25 churches and synagogues.

Jonathon Leiner is a communications specialist and multimedia storyteller. Prior to becoming JOIN’s Communications Manager, Jon was the Digital Strategist for Hazon, helping share their vision of sustainability through digital media. He is an alum of Hadar, where he spent a year immersed in Torah study and grassroots living room learning. His work history includes operating Wolf Blitzer’s teleprompter at CNN and teaching at the Burgundy Center for Wildlife Studies. Jon’s film work has screened at the Lund International Fantastic Film Festival in Sweden, and his drawings have been published in Vancouver’s Georgia Straight and the Washington Jewish Week. Jon studied at the Mayanot Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He and his wife Casara live in Cambridge, MA.

Cole Papadopoulos is JOIN’s administrative assistant. In addition to three years in medical administration and patient services, she has worked at clinic front desks and behind cafe counters, delivered BBQ on a bike, staffed hotlines, trawled for squid, and roasted beans in a chocolate factory. She enjoys office supplies, to-do lists, cooking, and archives.

Tali started with JOIN in August 2015. Tali’s passion for community organizing – specifically around climate change – began during the summer of 2010, when she participated in “New England Climate Summer.” On this program, she traveled across Massachusetts exclusively by bicycle with four other college students, and worked with communities to connect diverse constituencies within the emerging grassroots climate movement. Upon graduation from Brandeis University in 2013, Tali spent two years with the Repair the World Fellowship in Philadelphia. There, she partnered with the Jewish Farm School and urban farms to create the Philly Farm Crew, a program which creates volunteer and educational opportunities on urban farms. She is excited to support the growing movement of faith-based organizers with JOIN for Justice.